Democrats Control Judge Selection In State

Bench Seats Yield Financial Rewards

January 22, 1989|By NANCY COOK Staff Writer

When Newport News Circuit Court Judge Fred Bateman retires this February after eight years on the bench, he will be entitled to up to $44,000 a year in pension payments for life - more than half his annual salary.

That's because state law gives Virginia's 321 judges a benefit that, with one exception, no other state employee receives: For every one year they serve, they get 3 1/2 years of credit towards their retirement.

So, for Bateman's eight years on the bench, he gets 28 years credit. Add to that the eight years he served as a state senator, and he has accumulated 36 years worth of retirement benefits for 16 years as a state employee.

The maximum benefit allowed by law is 75 percent of his average salary for the last three years he worked; a circuit court judge with no prior service as a state employee would have to work about 14 years to qualify for that maximum benefit.

Such retirement benefits are one reason why judgeships in Virginia, awarded at the discretion of state lawmakers, are considered such plums.

It is also why there is never a shortage of prospective candidates, said state Sen. William Fears, D-Accomac, one of the state lawmakers who wants to change the judicial retirement system. "They are always lined up at the door."

Fears said he intends to join Republican Sen. William Truban of Shenandoah this year in fighting the pension plan. "With the salary they get, plus the pension plan, it is too much," he contends. "Look at the other state employees in this state, like the highway department. It is just wrong."

The appeal of the benefit is clear in the case of former Newport News attorney Theodore V. Morrison, who has been endorsed by state Democrats to join the three-judge State Corporation Commission.

Morrison, who served 20 years as a state lawmaker before retiring in 1987, would be entitled to about $3,300 a year in pension based on his last salary as a lawmaker of $11,500.

But if he serves just one six-year term on the SCC, he would boost to 41 the years he's credited for and receive up to $56,000 a year when he retires, based on the current SCC annual salary of $83,713.

The pension is based on an average of the state employee's last three years' salary.

These pension figures are based on a formula provided by the Virginia Retirement System. Neither the system's director nor the state Supreme Court would release actual pension payments.

State lawmakers who back the pension plan argue that top lawyers are lured to the bench by the special retirment benefit and salaries that rank Virginia in the top 10 in the nation.

Most successful attorneys, they contend, can make more than $100,000 a year in private practice, particularly in urban areas.

Salaries in Virginia range from $73,763 annually for district court judges and $81,959 a year for circuit court judges to $94,123 for Henry Lee Carrico, chief justice of the Supreme Court.

"The salary is usually lower than what they could make in a private practice," said state Sen. Joseph Gartlan, D-Fairfax. "It could cripple their future if we treat them as 21-year-old clerks."

Carrico agrees. Without higher salaries and a lucrative pension plan, he said, the state may not be able to continue attracting top-notch lawyers to the bench.

Gartlan said the retirement system was designed to appeal to older attorneys, although younger lawyers can serve one or two terms to qualify for full retirement, then return to private practice.

Some judges have done just that. Former state lawmaker and SCC Judge Junius Bradshaw retired from state service in 1985 and now works as a lobbyist in Richmond and for the law firm of Hunton and Williams. His retirement benefit, according to the SCC, is more than $24,000 a year.

State lawmakers in Virginia are granted full authority by the state Constitution to appoint judges and set their pen sions and salaries. They have given the same pension benefit as judges to one other state employee, Robert Baldwin, executive secretary of the Supreme Court.

Baldwin has more years of retirement credit than he has been alive. At 43, with 15 years of service, Baldwin has already earned 52.5 years worth of retirement benefits against a salary of $81,929. That means he is already guaranteed upon retirement 75 percent of his pay until he dies.

Baldwin said state lawmakers would explain why he, along with judges, gets the retirement benefit. But none of the state lawmakers interviewed for this story could explain the rational behind his receiving the benefit.

Truban, a Republican who periodically tries to change the pension program, said he thinks the pension plan costs the state too much.

"It was all right when salaries were lower," he said. "But it's gotten out of hand. What about all the other state employees who slave away for years and never get that? It's just not right."

Truban wants the pension cut to two years credit for each year served, which he said would be sufficient to lure good lawyers to the bench.

He said one reason Democratic lawmakers keep the pension so high is because some of them want to be judges when they retire from the legislature and because they want to ensure that judgeships remain a form of patronage.

Virginia is not the only state that has a pension plan for judges that is more lucrative than it is for other state employees. Officials in several other states, including North Carolina and Connecticut, said they also pay judges two to three times as much in retirement benefits compared to other state employees.